1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to speech processing, and more particularly to a parametric speech codec for achieving high quality synthetic speech in the presence of background noise.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Parametric speech coders based on a sinusoidal speech production model have been shown to achieve high quality synthetic speech under certain input conditions. In fact, the parametric-based speech codec, as described in U.S. application Ser. No. 09/159,481, titled “Scalable and Embedded Codec For Speech and Audio Signals,” and filed on Sep. 23, 1998 which has a common assignee, has achieved toll quality under a variety of input conditions. However, due to the underlying speech production model and the sensitivity to accurate parameter extraction, speech quality under various background noise conditions may suffer.
Accordingly, a need exists for a system for processing audio signals which addresses these shortcomings by modeling both speech and background noise simultaneously in an efficient and perceptually accurate manner, and by improving the parameter estimation under background noise conditions. The result is a robust parametric sinusoidal speech processing system that provides high quality speech under a large variety of input conditions.